Free The Deep Link (The Ascendancy Trilogy Book 1) by Veronica Sicoe Page A

the cracks. They crawl into the gutters and prey on vermin and
each other, sometimes reliving horrible things, sometimes doing them.
    Being dragged into a sewer by one of them as a
six-year-old nipped my interest in C2Ms in the bud. I still have nightmares of
floatheads clawing at me, trying to gut me open.
    "Seriously, Bug-Nut." Jade lays a hand on my
shoulder. "So many things can go wrong. You don't have to do this."
    "Yeah, I know." I brush his hand away gently.
"But yes, I do. With or without you, Jade, I need a new synet. I just
stand a much better chance if you help me."
    "Ah, what the hell. I'll get my hands on a clean
synet. You go find out when the diagnostics bay is empty. Or maybe hack in some
last-minute schedule changes or something. Wreak some havoc so we can get to
the Transiter ."
    "Um... how do you propose I do that?"
    "Oh, right." He scratches his head and grins.
"Fine, I'll do all the work, you parasite. Go get some rest. It might be
your last moment of clarity, what with untested wetware in your brain and me at
the helm. So shoo."
    -
    By the time Jade picks me up from my room, I'm a bundle of
raw nerves.
    He programmed a fake decontamination into the Transiter 's
maintenance schedule, making sure no one would be in the bay to spot us. But
since the gates are sealed, we have to break in through a ventilation shaft,
past several filters. Jade's got a jam-packed toolkit strapped around his
waist, and one around his ankle, and assures me it'll be 'a wink.'
    The shaft is just large enough for us to wriggle through,
but it still feels as if we might get stuck any moment. We crawl past several
broken fans, their rotor blades glazed with burnt dust and organic residues,
circuitry hanging behind them like spilled guts. The shaft's irregular welding
seams, covered in smut, scrape my hands and edge into my knees.
    "Jade?" My voice sounds stuffy in the confined
space. "Where did Preston find this ramshackle station anyway?"
    He peers at me between his arm and leg, his headlight
making me wince. "It's made of scraps. Rigged up from pieces of space
stations and satellites from the first wave of colonization. Some of it's even
pre-FTL, like the water recycling system. I think he stole most of it," he
adds quietly.
    "Damn." I crawl behind him, staring at his worn
TMC-issued boots. "How did he get it out here? He didn't fly all the way,
right?"
    "Did too."
    "No shit?"
    He grunts as he squeezes into a narrow duct to the right.
"The doc's real good with limited resources, and he's got the connections
for it. That's why I joined him in the first place. If anyone's gonna find us
alien allies, it's him."
    "Jade, let's be honest. We don't make a very good
impression in this rustbucket, or that flying egg-shell of a Transiter .
Why would aliens want to have anything to do with us ?"
    He stops and peers at me down his chest. "Would you
rather leave everything to the Ticks?"
    "That's not what I'm saying. Look. All I mean is that
Preston might have good intentions, but he sure as hell's doing everything he
can to make sure it's going nowhere."
    "What do you mean?" Jade keeps crawling.
    "Isn't it obvious? Sending us out to make contact in
a Transiter . Putting Bray in charge."
    He snorts. "Cut the man some slack."
    "He's a self-important prick with no clue what he's
doing."
    "That's what we're here for, But-Nut. That's
why he recruited us."
    "To get his ass out of trouble?"
    He stops again, and squints at me. "What are you
talking about?"
    "He panicked out there, and almost got himself
killed."
    "Preston was never out there."
    "Preston?" I ask confusedly. "I'm talking
about Bray."
    "Oh." He chuckles. "Of course you
are."
    "What's that supposed to mean?"
    "Nothing."
    "Jade!"
    He snorts, and keeps pushing forward. I groan and try to
keep up, crawling into the suffocating darkness on my stomach.
    We exit the ventilation shaft on top of a pile of
pressurized crates. It's dark except for a couple of dim, red strobe lights
warning us that